How to Sell Your Products Wholesale

Wholesale is not retail with bigger numbers. It is a different buyer, a different margin structure and a different set of paperwork, and most brands discover that halfway through their first conversation with a stockist.

This is the order to do it in, and what you need ready at each stage.

Before you approach anybody

Can you actually make the volume?

A single stockist can order more in one go than you sell direct in a quarter. Work out honestly how many units you can produce in a month, how long your lead time is, and what happens if two shops order at once. Winning an order you cannot fulfil is worse than not winning it — retailers plan their floor around delivery dates.

Decide which products go wholesale, too. It does not have to be everything. A tight, coherent range is easier to sell in than a full catalogue of everything you have ever made.

Price it properly, before anything is printed

This is where most brands lose money, and it is very hard to fix later — raising a wholesale price on an existing stockist is a conversation nobody enjoys.

Your wholesale price has to cover materials, labour including your own, and overhead, and still leave profit — typically at roughly double your breakeven. The retailer then usually doubles again to reach shelf price. If the number that falls out the far end is more than your market will bear, the problem is in your costs, not your pricing. Our guide to wholesale pricing, keystone and margin walks through the arithmetic.

Build a line sheet

A buyer will ask for your line sheet, and it is not the same document as a lookbook. It needs item numbers, wholesale and retail prices, size runs, case packs, minimum order and delivery windows — everything required to raise a purchase order without emailing you a single question. Our field guide to what belongs on one covers it field by field.

Find the right stockists

Not every shop that could carry you should. Before you add a name to the list:

• Do their customers look like yours? A shop with the wrong footfall will order once and never reorder, which costs you more in production than the order was worth.
• What price points do they already carry? If everything on their shelves is half your RRP, you are a hard sell regardless of quality.
• Are they trading well? Consistent footfall, a maintained shopfront, an active social presence. A struggling shop pays late.
• Wholesale or consignment? Wholesale means they buy your stock outright. Consignment means they hold it and pay only for what sells — your cash, your risk, their shelf. Consignment can be a reasonable way into a first shop, but know which you are agreeing to.

Start local and specific. Ten shops you have researched properly beat a hundred addresses scraped from a directory.

Making the approach

Direct contact

It still works, and most brands are too embarrassed to do it. Two things make the difference: reach the actual buyer rather than whoever answers, and lead with why their shop specifically. Shop owners at independents are often the buyer; at larger retailers there is a named buyer per category, and finding out who is most of the job.

Approach the larger retailers early, because their buying calendars run months ahead, then work the independents while you wait. By the time a big appointment comes round you will have stockists to point at.

Keep the first message short: what you make, who already stocks it, wholesale price and minimum, line sheet attached. Not your origin story.

Trade shows

A show puts you in front of buyers who came specifically to place orders, which is a different proposition from a cold email. It is also expensive and easy to do badly — the brands that come back with orders are the ones who booked appointments in advance and followed up within the week. Our trade show guide covers the timeline and what to bring.

Wholesale Central’s trade show calendar is one way to find shows by category and date.

Terms to decide before you are asked

Buyers will ask all of these in the first real conversation. Improvising costs you credibility.

• Minimum order — by value or units, and whether it differs for a first order versus a reorder
• Payment terms — proforma for new accounts is normal and reasonable; net 30 is the common ask once trading
• Lead time — how long from purchase order to delivery, honestly stated
• Case packs and size runs — whether they can buy a single unit or must take a pack
• Exclusivity — whether you will sell to another shop on the same street, and for how long
• Returns and faulty goods — what you replace and what you don’t
• MAP — the lowest price a stockist may advertise. Without one, a single discounter drags your whole range down

Put them in writing. Our free wholesale contract template has a place for each, and the wholesale order form template keeps them on the same document as the order itself.

You will also need whatever your jurisdiction requires to trade B2B — a resale certificate, a VAT or tax registration, business insurance. Check the specifics for yours before the first invoice, not after.

After the first order

Getting in is not the hard part. Staying in is.

• Deliver when you said. A late first delivery is usually a last delivery.
• Check back after a few weeks. What is selling, what isn’t, what would they order more of. This is free product research and it makes the reorder conversation easy.
• Help them sell it. Point-of-sale cards, care instructions, images they can post. A stockist who can merchandise you properly reorders sooner.
• Keep your line sheet current. Date it and set an expiry, so last season’s prices stop circulating in inboxes.

The documents you will need

In practice, three: a line sheet, an order form and a set of terms. Our free line sheet templates cover apparel, jewellery, bags, shoes, shirts and hats.

If your products already live in Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Wix or Ecwid, Foldsquare builds the line sheet from that data — item numbers, wholesale and retail prices and variants pulled straight through, so it updates when your catalogue does instead of being retyped every season.